Interfaith Week and the importance of excellent Religion and Worldviews teaching

Each year in November the Interfaith Network for the UK (IFN) convenes and coordinates Interfaith Week. For IFN, Interfaith Week is an opportunity to raise awareness about the UK’s different and distinct faith communities, and to celebrate the contribution which their members make to their neighbourhoods and wider society. In doing so, Interfaith Week creates opportunities to increase understanding between people of different religious and non-religious beliefs. However, for this to occur, IFN notes that there needs to be a foundation of understanding, awareness and respect.

To many people in the Religious Education world, these themes will be extremely familiar. Many educators will recognise that when supporting learning about complex and sensitive issues such as those relating to religion and belief, that there is a need to establish safe and nurturing learning environments which promote respect. Moreover, and with that open and inclusive learning environment established, religion and worldviews classrooms by definition must explore different and distinct religion and belief communities.

Religious Literacy: A tool for better interfaith relations

IFN talks about these kinds of activities as promoting greater religious literacy. Religious literacy is understood as a suite of skills for interpretation and interaction grounded in an understanding of one’s own faith or belief, and the faith or belief of those with whom they are interacting. For IFN this literacy is vital in a diverse society; it is one important factor which increases the likelihood of positive and respectful coexistence. Indeed, this aligns with findings from Culham’s 2022 Religion and Worldviews Parent survey which found that 66% of parents believe that religious education lessons prepare their children effectively for life in multi-religious, multi-secular Britain.

Interfaith Week: A tool for enhancing the teaching of religions in schools

There are many ways in which teachers can use Interfaith Week as an opportunity to dig into issues which align with many religious education syllabuses. For instance, IFN have seen how some schools use Interfaith Week as an opportunity to explore aspects of living together well in religiously diverse societies and the values that underpin them. Other schools have used Interfaith Week to deliver lessons focussing on a particular religion or religious festivals (particularly those which happen around the time of Interfaith Week). In these cases, schools often reach out to their local Interfaith Forum, or local places of worship, to explore how they can add greater richness to the planned activities such as sourcing speakers for assemblies. Where there are schools with different religious ethos’ physically close to one another, Interfaith Week has been an opportunity to do linking activities, which have brought children of different faith traditions together to learn from one another. Where distance might prevent this, some schools have found that they can use video-conferencing to facilitate exchanges between schools.

If you are interested in using Interfaith Week as a way into creative religious education learning opportunities, this report by IFN is a great place to start. Many local interfaith groups will be particularly active during Interfaith Week and receptive to enquiries and requests for help. For that reason, it is a great opportunity for schools to build up links with local faith communities and interfaith activists.